Category Archives: Translation

Cristina Garcia’s Cuba

Posted on April 11, 2012 by wcd2

April 11, 2012 We had to move the book up from the initial lineup — several people wanted to write about it in their final papers. How did they hear about it? But I should have guessed something like this … Continue reading →

Posted in Caribbean literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Ethnicity, Gender, Global South, Latin America, macro politics, Mayan mythology, mixed races, peripheral networks, Spanglish, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature | Tagged baseball, Bay of Pigs, Castro, ceiba tree, Celia del Pino, Cuba, El Líder, NIkolai Lenin, People's Court | 8 Comments

Iraq in Poetry: Brian Turner

Posted on April 4, 2012 by wcd2

April 4, 2012 Teaching his poetry was easy. There was never any doubt in my mind that it belonged in the course – along with Whitman on the Civil War; John Hersey on Hiroshima; Ha Jin on Korea; Michael Herr … Continue reading →

Posted in Arabic, Classics, collaboration, Contemporary novel, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Educational institutions, epic, Handwritten script, Islam, lyric, Media, Mesopotamia, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged Alhazen of Basra, American Civil War, analytical geometry, Brian Turner, Divisadero Street, Eulogy, Fresno, Gilgamesh. John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Ha Jin, Here Bullet, Hiroshima, John Hersey, Katyusha rockets, Korean War, Michael Herr, Vietnam, Walt Whitman | 3 Comments

Edwidge Danticat: French, English, Creole

Posted on March 14, 2012 by wcd2

March 14, 2012 Her first languages were Creole and French. At 12, she spoke almost no English. At 26, her collection of short stories, Krik? Krak!, was nominated for the National Book Award. It’s mind-boggling to think of that trajectory … Continue reading →

Posted in African-American literature, Caribbean literature, collaboration, Comparative literature, Contemporary novel, Creole, Gender, Global South, Igbo, Latin America, Media, mixed races, peripheral networks, print medium, Radio, Remediation, Translation | Tagged Chinua Achebe, Creole, Edwidge Danticat, French, Haiti, Igbo language, Joseph Conrad, Krik? Krak!, literacy, mediascape, National Book Award, Paris Review, Polish, Radio Lumière | 82 Comments

The Global South: Miami 2012

Posted on March 7, 2012 by wcd2

March 7, 2012 From where we were sitting, we could see the different kinds of palm trees. Brian Breed, David Borman, Carolina Villalba, Izabella Zieba — fourth year, third year, and second year students in the English Department. There … Continue reading →

Posted in collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Global South, Islam, Israeli literature, Latin America, Middle East, Near Eastern poetry, Palestinian film, Palestinian literature, peripheral networks, Translation, Twentieth century literature, Universities, world literature | Tagged A. B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, Anton Shammas, Columbia, Cuba, Daniella Carmi, David Grossman, Dominican Republic, Edwidge Danticat, Escobar, Faradis, Ghassan Kanafani, Haiti, Miami, Mutiny Hotel, Ranen Omer-Sherman, Sahar Khalifeh, Sayed Kashua, University of Miami, Yayha Yakhlif, Yehuda Amichai | 42 Comments

Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia, Gilgamesh

Posted on February 22, 2012 by wcd2

February 22, 2012 I’ve never given a talk at UCLA. Caltech, yes, in nearby Pasadena; also the Huntington Library. But never at the famed Royce Hall, 405 Hilgard Avenue. So I’m a bit anxious about tomorrow: a graduate student … Continue reading →

Posted in adaptation, Classics, collaboration, Comparative literature, contemporary poetry, Cuneiform, Dance, epic, Handwritten script, Mesopotamia, Near Eastern poetry, Remediation, Theater, Translation, Visual arts, world literature | Tagged Caltech, Chad Gracia, Cunieform, Enkidu, epic, Gilgamesh, Huntington Library, Ode to the Maggot, Our Oriental Heritage, Pasadena, Sumeria, UCLA, Will Durant, Yusef Komunyakaa | 67 Comments

Langston Hughes, Jacob Lawrence

Posted on February 8, 2012 by wcd2

February 8, 2012 Langston Hughes never went to Black Mountain College, but maybe he didn’t need to. 1948-49 was emblematic. A no doubt incomplete list of what happened during those months: in June 1948, Langston Hughes moved into 20 East … Continue reading →

Posted in abstract expressionism, collaboration, Cuban poetry, Media, Modernist poetry, print medium, Remediation, Translation, twentieth century art, Twentieth century literature, Visual arts | Tagged Arno Bontemps, Ben Frederic Carruthers, Black Mountain College, City Center, Cuba, Cuba Libre, Haiti, Home in a Box, Jacob Lawrence, Kurt Weill, Langston Hughes, New York, Nicolas Guillen, One-Way Ticket, Poetry of the Negro, Street Scene, Troubled Island, William Grant Still | 21 Comments

Two-Way Street

Posted on January 18, 2012 by wcd2

January 18, 2012 Alex Steele never took a class from me. I don’t think I’d ever seen her around the department. But my colleague, Richard Deming, who was going to direct her senior essay, is away on a Fellowship … Continue reading →

Posted in Contemporary Art, Egypt, Nineteenth-century literature, print medium, Remediation, Translation | Tagged Andrew Seguin, Matt Kish, Melville, Moby-Dick, new media, One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick, pedagogy | 162 Comments

Agha Shahid Ali’s “Call me Ishmael Tonight”

Posted on January 4, 2012 by wcd2

January 4, 2012 This was his last book of poems, published posthumously. Agha Shahid Agha had died of brain cancer on December 8, 2001. How important was Moby-Dick to the Kashmiri poet? Probably less than what Melvilleans would like to … Continue reading →

Posted in Islam, lyric, Near Eastern poetry, Nineteenth-century literature, Remediation, Translation, Twentieth century literature, world literature, World religions | Tagged Agha Shahid Ali, Amitav Ghosh, Arabic, Bible, Call Me Ishmael Tonight, Donald Hall, Edward Said, ghazal, Hayden Carruth, Kashmir, Mark Strand, Melville, Moby-Dick, Persian, Qur'an, W.S. Merwin | 62 Comments

Melville in the Dominican Republic

Posted on December 14, 2011 by wcd2

December 14, 2011 As far I know, he never set foot there. But then a physical journey is not always necessary. Junot Diaz is not shy about naming names — The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is almost … Continue reading →

Posted in epic, Global South, Nineteenth-century literature, Spanglish, Translation, world literature | Tagged Dominican Republic, epic, Junot Diaz, Melville, novel, science fiction, Spanlish, world literature | 11 Comments

Margaret Fuller, H.D., Joanne Kyger

Posted on December 7, 2011 by wcd2

December 7, 2011 Why is it that all of them reach back to ancient Greece, and not always out of any reverence for the classics? Of the three, Margaret Fuller is the most law-abiding: in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, … Continue reading →

Posted in ancient Greece, Classics, Egypt, epic, Gender, Global South, Translation, Uncategorized, world literature | Tagged Black Athena, Classics, Cyropedia, Egypt, Euripides, Global South, Greece, H.D., Helen in Egypt, Herodotus, Hesiod, Homer, Joanne Kyger, Margaret Fuller, Martin Bernal, Penelope, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Xenophon | 5 Comments